5 Reasons to Love Slam Poetry

What makes slam poetry so different? It’s an open diary. It’s no secret slam poetry leaves your skin goose bumped and your jaw dropped, at least a bit. Hearing passionate meaningful words leaves your mind with overwhelming memories, questions, and thoughts. Slam poetry originated forty years ago but has just risen in popularity. Poetry is honest – it’s what makes poetry. But slam poetry is more than honest- it is human. It is hedonistic: both liberating and torturous. Here are five other reasons to love and appreciate slam poetry:

1. Liberating

Genuine thoughts can become courageous words. Slam poets take the risk of being judged and questioned but the benefits outweigh the costs. Each recited poem is weight lifted from their shoulders and new ideas shared.

2. Remarkable

Listening to slam poetry does many things to us. But if we remember one main thing, it’s how it made us feel. Slam poetry touches the very depths of your feelings. I’ve had epiphanies because of the slam poetry I have witnessed. Poetry does not ask permission to express what needs to be said. Sometimes it makes you feel comfortable and other times it does just the opposite – that is part of what makes this form of art so remarkable.

3. Revolutionary

Slam poetry is perhaps the most excusable form of revolt since it is thoughts written on paper. Because it is thoughts that are soulful, wholesome, and permissible, the words get away with a lot. Freedom of speech does poets a lot of good when criticizing the pillars of our society, politics, and ideals.

4. Honest

The thing about writing is that it allows you to get things off of your chest. It essentially serves as the psychologist who doesn’t really exist. You tell this psychologist , aka journal, everything about your life: your feelings, emotions, opinions, angers, disappointments, excitements, happiness, sadness, achievements, criticisms, failures, regrets, and everything you experience in your day to day life. It becomes an art, an authentic art.

5. Impactful

When writing poetry, there is one goal: to write something meaningful. It doesn’t need to be prudent or polite. Slam poetry criticizes society, rethinks politics, and takes a stance on a controversy. It screams what may be deemed taboo and embraces what makes us feel upset. Writers want to leave you thinking and they want to leave thoughts lingering in the minds of their audience in order to plant the seed of change.

Slam poetry is practicing both writing poetry and performing on stage which, in unison, create a beautiful form of art. I encourage you to take the time to check out a local event – you won’t regret it!

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Paola is a student at Bentley University aspiring to pursue a degree in Information Design and Corporate Communications (concentration in Public Relations) with two minors in English and Psychology. She is an avid painter, blogger, and Starbucks sipper with a passion for stirring up vegan and vegetarian recipes. Her goal is to travel as much as possible and eventually land a job in the magazine industry.